


over and over, many setting suns

by spaceburgers



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:12:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6034183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceburgers/pseuds/spaceburgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five different Valentine's Days over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	over and over, many setting suns

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS EXTREMELY NOT BETA'D I'M SORRY
> 
> THIS IS ALSO EXTREMELY LATE I'M SORRY, AGAIN
> 
> this is what happens when you make the very bad decision of watching all of return of kings in one sitting till four in the morning
> 
> title from sun, by two door cinema club

i.

Back in elementary school, no one really gave a damn about Valentine’s Day – mostly it was just an excuse to eat as much chocolate as you wanted, which frankly suited Misaki just fine. But then middle school happened, and then suddenly it was a _thing_ , and your popularity depended on how many cards you received in your shoe locker in one day, and so far Misaki had a grand total of none, which was.

Well, it would’ve been _fine_ , except Saruhiko already had six, and _what the hell_. He was Saruhiko. Misaki hasn’t even seen him speak to a single girl in all the time he’s known him. He hasn’t seen him speak to _anyone_ in a non-threatening way apart from Misaki himself, really, so it made _absolutely no sense_ , and sure, it’s not like Misaki was that great at talking to girls either, but he had _tons_ of redeeming qualities, and he said as much to Saruhiko, who just looked at him rather strangely after he was done with his entire rant.

“If you want these so much I’ll give them to you,” Saruhiko said, shoving the cards in his hands at Misaki.

“I don’t want it, you dumbass!” Misaki hissed. “And anyway, they’re for _you_ , you can’t just give them away like that.”

“Why not? I don’t want it.”

Misaki glared at him before turning away, staring down at his lunch as he picked at his vegetables. He wasn’t _bitter_ or anything like that. He was just… _confused_. Because he had no idea why girls would choose to give chocolates to someone like _Saruhiko_.

(Except he did kind of have an idea. Because Saruhiko _was_ good-looking – as good-looking as a thirteen-year-old in the clutches of puberty could possibly be, really – and intelligent and when he was concentrating on something he got this look on his face that never failed to make Misaki smile, and he _supposed_ there was something about the whole quiet, mysterious vibe that all those girls were getting from Saruhiko. But those girls didn’t know anything, because Saruhiko was so much more than who they thought he was, so they didn’t have any business giving Saruhiko any Valentine’s Day cards _anyway_. So.)

“Valentine’s Day is stupid anyway,” Saruhiko mumbled as he heaped his vegetables onto Misaki’s plate.

“You’re really weird, Saruhiko,” Misaki replied, pushing his milk carton over to Saruhiko’s side of the table, and then he was telling Saruhiko about this movie he saw on television last night, and just like that, things were back to normal.

And then the day was over and they headed back to the lockers, and Misaki was all prepared to make fun of Saruhiko for receiving more cards he didn’t want, but then he opened his own locker and there was a _letter_ inside of it, and suddenly his brain short-circuited and he just stood there, staring dumbly at it.

“Oi, what’s the matter with y—”

Then Saruhiko saw what Misaki was staring at, and he immediately clamped his mouth shut.

“I—” Misaki started to say, then stopped. He turned to look at Saruhiko, but his face was perfectly blank.

Slowly, he reached into his locker and fished out the letter as carefully as possible, almost as if he was afraid it would fall apart in his hands. It was white, plain and simple, and on the in front someone had written in clear, precise handwriting, _to Yata-kun_.

“Open it,” Saruhiko said, quietly.

Misaki stared at the letter in his hands, at the words written in glittery purple ink, and making up his mind, he stuffed it roughly into his backpack.

“I won’t,” he said. He shook his head, got his shoes out of his locker and bent down to put them on. “Don’t want it,” he added, more to himself than anything.

“Who was the one complaining about not getting anything earlier today?” Saruhiko said, and even without looking Misaki could hear the amusement in his voice, and for some reason he found that he was blushing. He shook himself, stood up and glared at Saruhiko.

“If you don’t want yours then I don’t want mine either,” he said, and that was that.

-

ii.

The thing nobody told him about living with your best friend was that it involved a _lot_ more arguing than they were both used to. Misaki was naturally hotheaded – he couldn’t help it, honestly – and Saruhiko was guarded and confrontational – and Misaki knew he couldn’t help it either – and no matter how in tune they were to each other by now sometimes fights just inevitably broke out.

Such as right now, because Misaki had said something about Saruhiko’s dad, and Saruhiko had said something right back about Misaki not understanding anything, and then there was a lot of shouting and punches thrown at each other, and now Saruhiko was burrowed under a blanket on his bed on the top bunk, and Misaki was sitting underneath it on the bottom bunk trying to pretend he wasn’t staring at the platform above him as if he could magically see right through it.

The thing is, he didn’t want to apologize. He didn’t want to say sorry because he wasn’t sorry at all for saying the things he said. Mostly, he was sorry for making Saruhiko mad at him, because Saruhiko was quite literally the only person in the entire world that he could genuinely call a friend, and as he sat in his bed all he could think of, helplessly, was the way they’d wandered aimlessly around Shizume City the day before making fun of all the outrageous Valentine’s Day ads they’d come across, and _that’s right_ , Misaki thought, _it’s Valentine’s Day today_ , and he was spending it hunched up in bed with his chin pressed against his knees, sulking and being childish, and why was he even mad in the first place anyway?

“Saruhiko,” he called. No response.

“Saruhiko,” he said again. He shifted, stuck his head out from his bed to look up at the top bunk, but all he could see was Saruhiko’s back, knees huddled against his chest, and Misaki’s heart clenched painfully.

“Hey,” he said. He got up, climbed up the ladder leading to Saruhiko’s bunk, stood with his hands braced against the mattress. “I’m sorry.”

No response. Misaki took a deep breath.

“I just—I don’t want you to be mad at me anymore, because it sucks, and it’s lonely when I can’t talk to you, and you’re my best friend, and like it or not we’re stuck together now, so—”

“I’m not mad,” Saruhiko said, and Misaki blinked.

“What?”

Saruhiko clicked his tongue. “I said I’m not mad.”

“You’re not?”

Finally Saruhiko sat up and turned to look at Misaki – he wasn’t wearing his glasses and his hair was a complete mess; his clothes were rumpled and his face was tinged faintly with pink. He was scowling, and yet all Misaki wanted to do was laugh, giddy with relief and some other feeling he wasn’t quite able to pinpoint just yet. “Stop making me repeat myself,” he said, and Misaki grinned.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Thanks, Saruhiko.”

Saruhiko gave him a strange look. “What for?” he asked.

Misaki shrugged.

“Just because,” he said, and smiled.

-

iii.

Valentine’s Day used to be a day Misaki spent alone, conscious of the fact that he was glaringly single. He had Saruhiko, of course, and Saruhiko was great, but it still got a little lonely sometimes — he was so used to being surrounded by loud voices, people pushing and shoving at each other, his own family squeezed into the cramped space of their apartment before he’d moved out — and he always felt a little guilty about it, because in a perfect world he wouldn’t be lonely at all. He and Saruhiko would’ve had each other, and that would’ve been enough.

Now, though — now he _belonged_ somewhere, this ragtag group that he’d somehow found himself a part of, and the best part of it all was that Saruhiko was right there by this side too, matching HOMRA emblems emblazoned across their shoulder blades, and Misaki had never been happier in his entire life.

Valentine’s Day wasn’t really Valentine’s Day anymore. More importantly, it was Totsuka-san’s birthday; Totsuka-san, who was kind and careful and always so painfully genuine, and if birthdays were meant to be a day to celebrate a person _existing_ then this whole fanfare was completely worth it – cake and a probably ill-advised amount of alcohol, the bar decorated with balloons and streamers and a banner that had obviously been sewn back together multiple times before, and Misaki wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The adults were all drunk off their asses – well, everyone except Mikoto-san, who despite having downed shot after shot throughout the course of the entire evening didn’t even so much as stutter – and Totsuka-san had somehow ended up sitting on the couch pressed right up against Misaki; Misaki who, despite all his protests, was just nursing a soda and watching the drunk chaos unfold around him with a vague mixture of amusement and horror.

But now Totsuka-san had quietened down, and even through the haze of alcohol he was looking at Misaki with kind eyes and a soft smile, and he said, “I’m glad you found your place here.”

Misaki stared at him, at a loss for words.

“Totsuka-san,” he started to say, but Totsuka just shook his head.

“You and Fushimi both,” he said. “We’re happy to have you.”

Misaki looked and looked at him, and then he broke out into a grin.

“We’re glad too,” he said. “Right, Saruhiko?”

He turned around, expecting Saruhiko to be right behind him but—

_Where did he go?_

-

iv.

Saruhiko was in Scepter 4, Totsuka-san was dead, and there was an ache in Misaki’s chest that just wouldn’t go away.

Most days, it was fine. Most days Misaki could take it out on the idiots who dared to cross his path, feeling power overflow from the tips of his fingers in the form of flames, and he could feel that heat curl around his heart and just for the briefest of moments, he could forget.

Most days it was fine, but sometimes he’d catch a glimpse of Anna and his heart would _break_. Sometimes he’d be cleaning up his apartment – the same one he used to share with Saruhiko, because he was broke off his ass and couldn’t afford anywhere else and he fucking hated every second of it – and he’d find an old sweater under his bed, a missing sock that didn’t belong to him, and it’d hurt all over again, as if it was the first time he came home and realized that all of Saruhiko’s stuff was gone, as if it was the night he’d found Totsuka-san’s body, bleeding out onto cold metal, eyes glassy and unfocused and unseeing—

Today was one of those days, because it was Totsuka-san’s birthday, and all Kamamoto could fucking talk about was this girl he wanted to date and Mikoto-san was _fuck_ knows where and Kusanagi-san was polishing glasses behind the bar and listening to what Kamamoto was saying, humming at all the appropriate places, and Misaki was so angry he felt himself trembling, hands balled into his fists, his knuckles turning white.

Kamamoto was still talking and Misaki wasn’t even listening, but then Kusanagi-san said, “Ah, it must be nice to be young and carefree again,” and Misaki felt himself _snap_.

“ _Fuck you_ ,” he hissed, grabbing his skateboard from where it was leaning against the bar, and Kamamoto shouted something and Kusanagi-san said something too, but Misaki could barely hear them over the blood rushing in his ears. He kicked the door open – _Kusanagi-san’s going to make me pay for that later_ , he thought – and then he was off, skating down the road with his heart pounding in his chest. Unthinkingly, he reached to touch two fingers to the mark hidden underneath his shirt. He remembered calling HOMRA his home; the word tasted bitter in his mouth now, because he’d called HOMRA his home but nobody seemed to care, and he’d called his dingy apartment with Saruhiko his home too but then—

He stopped abruptly, skateboard grinding to a halt under his feet, because there he was – Saruhiko, dressed in the blue Scepter 4 uniform, sword at his hip and a PDA in one hand. He clicked his tongue as he glared down at the screen, typing something on it, and any other time Misaki would’ve just turned around and left, but today he was angry, and he could already feel the blood boiling in his veins, and he thought of how Saruhiko used to tell him off for not thinking before he spoke back in middle school, and he opened his mouth and shouted, “Oi! Saru!”

He watched as Saruhiko froze, shut his PDA and stuffed it back into his pocket. He watched as Saruhiko turned around, looked at him, and _smiled_.

He never used to smile like that.

“Why, if it isn’t Misaki,” Saruhiko crowed.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Misaki shot back.

“But _Misaki_ ,” Saruhiko sighed, and Misaki could already feel the flames beginning to bubble just beneath his fingertips. “Not even for old times sake?”

“You shitty monkey—” Misaki said, and he raised his fist, all ready to strike, but then someone was grabbing hold of his arm. He jerked away violently, turned around—it was Kusanagi-san, looking down at him with something almost akin to sadness in his eyes.

“Yata-chan,” he said. _Tired_ , Misaki thought. _He looked tired._ “Let’s go back.”

Startling, he realized Anna was standing behind Kusanagi-san, peeking at him from behind his legs. He looked away, lowered his fist.

“Fine,” he said. He looked down at the ground, not meeting Kusanagi-san’s eyes; but then Anna walked up to him, cradled his hand in her smaller ones. Her hands, Misaki thought, were surprisingly warm.

“Let’s go home,” she said, her voice very quiet.

Misaki looked at her, at her round eyes and pale skin and the fragile lines of her fingers, and his expression softened and he said, “Okay.” He paused, smiled at her. “Sure, Anna.”

He held Anna’s hand the entire walk back. He didn’t turn to look at Saruhiko at all.

-

v.

A lot of things happened in a very short amount of time.

Mikoto-san was dead. Anna was their king. Then there weren’t even kings anymore.

He got a job. He taught kids how to skateboard.

He and Saruhiko made up.

They talked a lot—about HOMRA, about Scepter 4; about Mikoto-san and Totsuka-san and Munakata Reisi; why Saruhiko left. Sometimes Saruhiko just complained about work and Misaki talked about something funny that’d happened at the bar earlier that day. Sometimes they didn’t talk at all, just sat together in silence that was—for the first time in a long, long while—perfectly comfortable.

It still hurt, sometimes. But he bought a camera, and although it still reminded him of Totsuka-san, he stopped feeling a pang in his chest every time he looked at it. He started taking photos with it—Anna, napping quietly on a couch; Kusanagi-san, on the phone with someone, smiling to himself; Saruhiko, ducking away from the camera, looking irritated. Saruhiko, hunched over a desk, squinting at a stack of papers _._ Saruhiko with soda in his hair because they’d stupidly thrown the bottles at each other before opening them, his expression somewhere in between amusement and exasperation. His eyes were bright and the corners of his lips titled upwards in the shadow of a smile, and Misaki found himself staring at that photo most of all.

( _This feeling was_ —)

Anna had told him that the best approach towards rebuilding their friendship was honesty. She was right, of course, and Misaki was trying. It was easier to keep things to himself, but he tried his best to tell Saruhiko as much as possible. About how he’d almost set Saruhiko’s bunk on fire two weeks after he’d left. The way he’d wake up from dreams still feeling like Mikoto-san’s flame was within him. That he hadn’t hated Saruhiko at all, not really. Not at all.

But there was something he hadn’t quite been able to say out loud, something he still didn’t quite understand yet.

( _The word for it was_ —)

And because this could only happen to him, it finally struck him _on Valentine’s Day_ of all days, when he and Saruhiko were watching some mindless action flick on the television in Misaki’s apartment, and he hadn’t even realized it was Valentine’s at all until he turned to the side and caught a glimpse of Saruhiko’s profile, and something happened on screen that made him click his tongue, and his eyes were partially obscured by the reflection of the TV screen on his glasses, and Misaki opened his mouth and said, unthinkingly, “I think I like you.”

Something big was happening in the movie. The television was making a racket. Saruhiko turned to him, his eyes very wide.

“What?” he said.

“I,” Misaki started to say, then stopped.

It would be so easy to pretend he hadn’t said anything at all, but Misaki’s heart was thundering in his chest, and Saruhiko was looking at him as if he’d never seen anyone like him before, and suddenly so many things just _made sense_ , a hundred different moments clicking into place—the almost desperate happiness he’d felt when they first became friends, the suffocating pain when Saruhiko had left and turned into a version of himself that Misaki no longer recognized—all of it suddenly assembling itself, and _oh_ , Misaki thought. _I’m an idiot._

“I like you,” he said again. His tongue tripped over the words; his face was probably on fire. Saruhiko was still staring at him.

A long pause stretched out between them. Distantly, Misaki was aware that the movie was still playing, but he couldn’t hear a single word of it. _This is it_ , Misaki thought. _Near-death experiences and a betrayal and four years of not speaking to each other couldn’t kill our friendship, and now this is the final straw._ He wondered if he could still retract the words. He thought about how Saruhiko would react—disgust, probably. He might even laugh in Misaki’s face. Or he might just walk out the front door.

_Or maybe, he might even—_

“Do you mean it?” Saruhiko said, his voice very quiet.

“Yeah,” Misaki said. He looked down, swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I—Yeah.”

And then Saruhiko _laughed_. Misaki looked up, face hot—Saruhiko was leaning back against the couch, head titled up towards the ceiling, laughing hysterically.

“What the fuck,” Misaki hissed. “I thought you were— _fuck_ , I thought you were okay again, but if you’re going to act like a creepy fucking asshole all over again then just—”

He leaned over, grabbed Saruhiko by the collar, and Saruhiko shut his eyes and said, “You _like_ me. Even after everything I did you _like_ me.”

Misaki blinked at him. His grip on Saruhiko’s shirt loosened.

“What are you trying to—”

“I can’t believe,” Saruhiko said. He tilted his head back, looked up at the ceiling. “After all this time, you actually—”

“You fucking asshole.” Misaki glared at him, and Saruhiko still refused to meet his eyes. “I’m a dumbass and I don’t get what you’re trying to tell me, so just _say it_ already.”

Saruhiko finally looked at him then; his eyes were so bright, even through his glasses.

“Me too,” he said. “Ever since middle school. Always.”

Misaki’s face was bright red. His hands came to rest on Saruhiko’s shoulders; distantly, he was aware of the heat of his body, the burned-off scar hidden just underneath his shirt, all the scars that riddled his skin, and Misaki wanted him so badly he could barely breathe.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he admitted at last. Saruhiko snorted.

“You’re telling _me_ ,” he said.

Their faces were so close, Misaki thought. If he wanted to, he could—

“You’re all red,” Saruhiko said. Misaki scowled.

“Shut up,” he hissed. “God, we’re going to be _terrible_ at this—”

“Yeah,” Saruhiko agreed easily. The tips of his ears were red, Misaki realized. Because some things never changed, and Saruhiko was still so predictable, feigning nonchalance even now.

“I like you,” Misaki said again. Just because he could. “I like you a lot.”

Saruhiko smiled.


End file.
